We take a look at LG's supercharged, Korea-only G3, powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 805 processor

The LG G3 isn't old news just yet. We've recently reflected on our first couple of months with the phone, and in many countries it's only just making its way out onto the market. But the march of technological progress continues, not least in LG's home country of South Korea, where arch-rival Samsung already has its own 2K-toting, Snapdragon 805-powered version of the Galaxy S5.

LG's answer to the GS5 Broadband LTE-A is the G3 Cat. 6, a turbo-charged version of the G3 with support for Korea's super-fast LTE Category 6 networks — but perhaps more importantly, an upgraded CPU and GPU too. The G3 Cat. 6 is powered by a 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 processor, paired with Qualcomm's latest Adreno 420 GPU, a step up from the Snapdragon 801-plus-Adreno 330 of the original G3.

The G3 Cat. 6 is a Korea-only product, and LG tells us there are no plans to launch this version internationally. (Though it is available to import.) But that's not going to stop us tearing into the new G3's hardware and seeing how it measures up to the original. Read on to find out more.

About this review

We're publishing this review after a week with the SKT version of the LG G3 Cat. 6 — LG-F460S — running software version 10F. While this G3 isn't properly tuned for European networks, it does support a bevy of LTE bands including Band 3 (1800MHz), the main band used by EE in the UK.

Video walkthrough

LG G3 Cat. 6 hardware

To the untrained eye, both the LG G3 Cat. 6 and the regular G3 are almost indistinguishable — externally, and especially when viewed from the front, they're pretty much the same phone. The front is dominated by that gigantic 5.5-inch, 2560x1440 display, the back furnished in plastic with a metallic finish. More or less everything we said in our original LG G3 review holds true here too — the G3 Cat. 6 is about as comfortable as it's possible to make a 5.5-inch smartphone — and the back, while decidedly plasticky, doesn't attract fingerprints the way some older Samsung phones do.

This thing still looks and feels like a G3.

There are some subtle hardware tweaks to note, though. Being a Korean G3, you get the nifty extendable TV antenna that protrudes from the top of the device — though as before, the preloaded TV app doesn't do anything outside of Korea. And things are arranged differently behind the battery door, too. The microSD and microSIM slots now live on either side of the rear buttons, and a notch at the top of the SIM slot makes it easier to remove your SIM card without having to wiggle it free. The gold contacts for NFC and wireless charging have moved around too, so accessories designed for the vanilla G3 likely won't fit the Cat. 6 version.

One thing that hasn't changed is the battery — the G3 Cat. 6 uses the same 3,000mAh unit as the regular G3, and the batteries are interchangeable with the same model number: BL-53YH.

In fact, the Cat. 6, like many Korean smartphones, comes packaged with an extra battery and an external charger (BC-4300). (And usefully, the the charging dock also serves as a portable stand for the phone.)

What the benchmarks tell me is that there is performance to be had by disabling bloat and work on a little tuning.
My G3 just turned in a Metal score of 1596 and an Antutu score of 35867.

People won't realize that the gain between the 801 and 805 is in large part due to the potentially faster clock speed. Getting rid of crap that runs in the background could get to the same performance numbers or better (my case) than the 805 variant of the G3.

^This. Out of the box, the G3 is a lagfest, especially if you have a carrier variant. But if you root and uninstall all of the carrier bloat and the LG bloat that you won't be using, the phone becomes incredibly fast. There are also a few modifications that can be made with the FPS and thermal throttling that make a difference. After making all of those changes in what probably took less than a half an hour, this is the fastest phone I've ever owned and I've used the M8 and S5 for a period of time in the past few months. I probably couldn't be happier with this phone and the 805 processors in the upcoming devices aren't really swaying me at all.

I used to find it unacceptable, also. But I really wanted an Android device with a good camera and as of right now only Samsung, LG, and Sony are offering that. I tried out the S5 and wasn't a fan and the Z2 is hard to get ahold of, so that left me with the G3. Hopefully HTC gets better in the camera department with the M9 and I can return to their devices because they truly do offer a great out-of-the-box experience and the best software in the business (Sense truly does rival stock Android).

The GPU will do nothing for the phone except in 3D GL games. I'll say it for the thousandth time, a 2D accelerated interface does not need even a tenth of the power of the current range of GPUs, let alone the next gen ones. Games, yes, but nothing else.

You realise that the GPU doesnt throttle past the minimum when working your way around the launcher or opening apps right? Try locking it to the minimum, it makes no difference at all.

Because it would cost them wayyyy too much money to supply US carriers and retailers with this when there is virtually no difference to your average consumer, and as far as I know the Cat6 capability is largely unusable in US.

This is why being first to market is not the best move, if LG had simply held up they could have put the right chip in their G3 out of the gate and now are screwing their customers both in S.Korea who bought early and now all other markets since users will NOT get the properly equipped model with the S805.

Yeah hopefully the note 4 is as amazing as the note 3 was when it first came out. Hell the note 3 is still a great phone. The only thing is that the note 4 is going to cost a lot even with a two year upgrade. I got my g3 for $100 with a two year upgrade the day it became available in the US

The SD 805 and Adreno 420 should have been in the U.S. variants. I'm sure people would have waited 30 days, or longer, to have this. Besides that, these performance updates need to start hitting the US....and soon.

Root and uninstall the bloat and it's like having a different phone. I don't know how the performance could be any better for me at this point. I get no lag or stuttering like I did with the phone out of the box.

^This. Although the AT&T G3's bootloader cannot be unlocked, I honestly haven't had a reason to want to unlock it yet. Unrooting is ridiculously simple, as is going back to complete stock. So "regaining" my warranty isn't an issue at all and I have this device set up exactly like I want it.

What LG should have put out in the first place with the intial release and all bands. No matter, in Canada the G3 just came out August 1st with the 801. At this point I'll wait for September and what the Note 4 has to offer.

Exactly. It's ridiculous that the OG G3 runs as poorly as it does then they release a faster version of the same phone that fixes most of the issues. Look at the comments here though, Android users apparently have a high threshold for a phone running like crap.

It's a interesting variant of a nice phone. I agree they should offer it here in the USA and they could always utilize the pop up antenna for better cell reception if they wanted to. It would be a great feature to promote. I've always wondered why the manufacturers dropped doing this. It's not like we have perfect ocean to ocean coverage.

it seems to be a habit of both LG and Samsung to release
a new phone in the US/EU with somewhat outdated processor,
then wait two months to release the exact same phone with the
latest processor in Korea.

You should not need to root. But with the carrier bloat you may need to.
The first thing is to go into the application manager and disable all the crap you can.
That will speed up the phone significantly.
Also get rid of most of the widgets, they slow down the phone. GPU won't matter because you use it for 3D. You need to go into developer settings to use the GPU for 2D rendering. So unless your 3D gaming is suffering the GPU doesn't matter.

Depending on what is running an 801 vs 805 discussion is moot. The performance difference is largely due to better pipelining so they can run it faster vs architectural changes that really change performance.

I can get my phone to benchmark ~12% faster than that 805 by disabling crapware/bloatware.
The rule is: No matter how fast a hardware guy makes a processor, some software guy will make it slow. 8-)

A 64 bit processor, emulating in 32 bit, as soon as Android L 64 bit gets released and LG passes it on to the users, they'll have a 64 bit OS, 64 bit core apps, QHD screen, 4K recording, 4K output, envy, even with a Nex 5 and 10.

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